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Alec thought of himself as a nice person. Honestly. He thought of himself as someone who would never listen in on other people’s conversations. Especially not when he only had a few more days of spring break before he had to go back to classes and assignments. It wasn’t his fault that the door to his sister, Isabelle’s room was open. Although it might be his fault that the one to his own was open, as well, so he could hear what Izzy and her friends were talking about.
Alec also thought of himself as a logical, rational, if not a little cynical, person.
So when he heard Izzy’s best friend go on about how she thought he was her soulmate, and he cheated on her, he couldn’t help but chime in.
“That’s ridiculous,” he said, not too loudly, but apparently loud enough for the people in the other room to hear.
“Excuse me?” The girl, Clary, called back, and the voice that had up until that point been sad suddenly turned feisty.
Alec got up from his desk, abandoning the project he was working on, and walked to his sister’s room before replying.
“The soulmates idea,” he clarified. “It’s a ridiculous concept.”
Suddenly, three pairs of eyes were on him. Isabelle was sitting on her bed, and Clary was next to her. Magnus, a guy Izzy had started hanging out with a few months ago after meeting him in one of her classes, was sitting on the floor, using the bed frame as support for his back.
“Alec, this really isn’t the time for you to go into a rant,” Isabelle spoke, already getting up to shut the door in his face, until another voice stopped her.
“Wait, Iz. I wanna hear him elaborate on that.” It was Magnus. Alec didn’t know him well – he didn’t know any of her friends well – but what he did know was that he was very open about his opinions, and his wishes. So when he said he wanted to hear Alec speak, Izzy motioned for him to come in.
“Uh, okay, I guess,” Alec said, sitting down on the floor, a little further from the bed so he could see all three of them.
“I just have a question before you start,” Clary said. “Magnus, whose side are you on? True love’s, or Alec’s?”
“I’m not on anyone’s side, biscuit, but I do share Alexander’s opinion. I don’t think any one of us has a soulmate.” His fingers made quotation marks in the air as he said the word.
“Oh god,” Izzy sighed and hugged a pillow to her chest, as if it could protect her from what she was about to witness.
“Okay, so, the soulmates concept,” Alec started. “First of all, it perpetuates the idea that there is only one person you’re meant to be with, meaning it dismisses polyamory as a thing, and polyamory is a thing. And it kind of dismisses the aro spectrum by making you believe that this is the person you will see and instantly love, romantically. And at the end of the day, it dismisses free will! I mean, it’s telling you that you’ll never be happy until you find this one person, and that’s the only person you should be with, and you don’t get a say in that.” He paused when he saw Magnus smirking. “What?”
“Nothing,” he responded, “I just thought Izzy was joking when she said you would be going into a rant.”
“I haven’t even started yet. Where was I?”
“Free will.”
“Right. Thanks. So, whichever version of soulmate alternate universe you want to take as an example, it’s the same thing. Maybe you’ll never see the color that is the color of their eyes until you meet them, or maybe every bruise they get will show on your skin, or maybe you’ll never feel warm until they touch you, whatever! But your life will be lesser in some way if you don’t do everything in your power to find them.”
Magnus seemed to be struck—well, not speechless, exactly, but close. “You... You've really thought this through, haven't you?”
“I grew up with a sister who really loved fairytales, and I was the evil older brother who wanted to ruin them for her,” Alec said, throwing a smile Izzy’s way, and Magnus nodded as if that explained everything. “Okay, so I have more, but I’d kind of like to hear you.”
“Oh? Well, if you insist.”
“I do.”
Magnus took a second to compose his thoughts and then started speaking. “Everything you said stands, but even if we ignore all that, there is still this huge logistics issue. Like, there are, what, seven, eight, however many billion people on this planet, and you’re supposed to find one of them?! What are the odds of that actually happening? What if my soulmate lives in, I don’t know, Antarctica? I think it’s safe to assume I will probably never meet them. So does that mean I will be alone and miserable for the rest of my life?”
Alec jumped in, “Maybe you’ll find someone to settle with. Not settle down, but settle for. And they will know you’re not their soulmate, and you’ll know that they’re not yours, but you’ll still be together because you don’t have the people you’re supposed to be with anywhere nearby.”
“Exactly,” Magnus agreed. “And is it a mutual thing? If someone is my soulmate, does that automatically make me theirs? Or will I one day find mine, and they will already have found theirs? That way I’d still be miserable!”
“And what about age? You’re what, twenty?” When Magnus confirmed, Alec went on. “So will your soulmate be of your age or can you be twenty and find your sixty-eight-year-old soulmate? Or, the other way around, my soulmate might not even be born yet! It’s creepy!”
Magnus grunted in agreement before continuing. “And accidents happen, disease happens, death happens. So that means that even if I could get to Antarctica to find said soulmate, they might be dead when I get there!”
“Precisely. So back to my original statement, it’s a ridiculous concept.”
They were both silent for a few moments, until they heard chuckles coming from the bed. Isabelle’s face was hidden behind the pillow now, but her entire body was shaking from laughter.
“Something funny, sister?” Alec asked.
It was Clary who spoke then, not even trying to hide the grin on her face. “You know what some people would say if they heard you complete each other’s thoughts like you just did, right?”
“What?” Magnus asked, confused.
“They’d say that you two are soulmates."